


The Sick Children

by pigeonanarchy



Series: i believe in kindness [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, fuck you jonny sims, the sick village but some people communicate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24752359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonanarchy/pseuds/pigeonanarchy
Summary: Mary won’t admit this, even to herself, but Samantha is starting to scare her more than the sickness spreading through the town. A terrible thing to say about your wife, the woman you’re raising not one, not two, but three children with, the woman who is - was, really - always patient with the ADHD you can never quite figure out how best to cope with, but. It’s true.Samantha is working hard, she says. They need to protect their children from threats, they need to keep the outsiders away, they need to make the village how it was. Can’t she see this? The way things are now - corrupted, decaying,sick- isnoway to raise children. Their children deserve the free and peaceful childhood that Mary and Samantha had.Mary’s just… uncomfortable, with some of what’s happening.
Series: i believe in kindness [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770628
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	The Sick Children

**Author's Note:**

> Bigass trigger warning specifically for people discussing killing children (a parent wondering if killing their child would be a mercy and other adults considering killing a child in case the kid inherited anything bad from their mother, who has already been killed) no children are actually killed though, every kid survives. I haven’t actually finished writing so I can’t make guarantees about the parents but all the children survive and they will come out of this with people willing and capable to take care of them. Also this is based on the sick village so warnings for that too but i figure those are more obvious.
> 
> tell me if this needs more warnings or specific tags
> 
> ...i feel like im coping with something here but i have no idea what  
> anyways come get yall italics

Mary won’t admit this, even to herself, but Samantha is starting to scare her more than the sickness spreading through the town. A terrible thing to say about your wife, the woman you’re raising not one, not two, but three children with, the woman who is - was, really - always patient with the ADHD you can never quite figure out how best to cope with, but. It’s true.

Samantha is working hard, she says. They need to protect their children from threats, they need to keep the outsiders away, they need to make the village how it was. Can’t she see this? The way things are now - corrupted, decaying, _sick_ \- is _no_ way to raise children. Their children deserve the free and peaceful childhood that Mary and Samantha had.

Mary’s just… uncomfortable, with some of what’s happening.

Not that she’s _doubting_ Samantha, of course! Samantha is doing everything she can to protect their children and community - sure, some things aren’t great, but those are necessary precautions. They _need_ to take extra measures for protection, to stem the growth and spread of the horrid disease plaguing their community. If the safety precautions make her uncomfortable, the lack of them would be so much worse. Her wife is doing her _best,_ and Mary can’t forget that.

Josie is crying, again. The poor darling, three years old isn’t old enough to understand why she has to always be wearing her protective outfit. Benny didn’t understand at first, either - how long ago was that? How old was he? Mary can’t remember. This feels like it’s been happening forever, but Benny’s only six, and he wasn’t _that_ old when this started, right? - but he got the concept quickly, that even the air wasn’t safe. Josie isn’t really able to get that, so she cries.

Mary holds her, trying to soothe her baby daughter through layers and layers of fabric. It helps, a little. She worries, knowing what’s under the fabric - the sore, irritated skin that she sees when, covered in even more layers for safety, she gives Josie her baths. The hints of blue where the skin is reddest. She hopes that that’s the limit of the infection. She knows that, at least for herself, it’s not. She can’t bear to peel away any of Josie’s skin to check, though.

Benny and Mabel, the eldest, can wash themselves. Mary tells herself that they aren’t touched by the rot (she hasn’t seen their skin since everyone decided to cover themselves. She can hardly remember their faces, if she’s truly honest with herself).

She hasn’t told Samantha. Not about the hints of blue in Josie’s irritated skin, not the streaks of green and yellow she’s found peeling back her own.

She _should,_ she _knows_ she should. She’s a danger to their community, she should at least be quarantined, and Samantha deserves to be aware of her child’s health problems. Samantha _would_ take care of Josie, if she knew. Mary has no reason to _not_ tell her, but she just… doesn’t. More damning, though, is her inability to speak up about _herself._ She’s endangering their children with her very presence, she’s endangering Samantha. _Something_ needs to be done about the threat she poses. She needs to be a responsible member of the community, to take the first step. She doesn’t. She’s afraid.

-

Tom is afraid. His wife has been executed, for the safety of the village, he _knows_ that. She had moved here as a child, brought by parents who’d since passed away. He loved her, yes, but that didn’t make her safe. Sacrifices have to be made, he’d been told, but why _Elena?_ They’d both been working to put her through medical school, she’d been investigating the rot! Sure, she didn’t have all the experience and knowledge, she wasn’t a biologist, she hadn’t gotten a license as a doctor, but she was a damn sight better than anyone else they had? Why not quarantine her, and the other ill people? Why not seek means of recovery?

No, Elena had been rotten to the core, he is told. He agrees, and hopes that if he’s as true to their community as they can be, no one will wonder after Amy. Tom knows that he is rotten, that _Amy_ is rotten - she’s only a couple months past a year old, how could he not? Elena had held hope, or at least had pretended to, that Amy could be cured, that they could as well. She’s dead now, though. All _he_ can do is try to buy Amy some time.

Is that even worth it, though? Would he be condemning her to a life of fear and pain?

But then, can he condemn her to die?

-

Mary overhears her Samantha talking with some others of the council. They decide that Tom cannot be trusted. Everyone knows how dearly he loved Elena, and she was _far_ too much an outsider. She’d been talking about trying to cure that which plagues them, but everyone had known she was really looking for ways to spread it. Who knows, maybe she’d even brought it in. Such a lovely woman, she’d seemed, but Samantha always had been a better judge than Mary.

_Tom_ is a good man, Samantha and the council agree on that, but who could know what sort of rot Amy had inherited from Elena, and Tom was too _kind_ to ever be willing to report any symptoms Amy could show. They couldn’t risk letting her reach adulthood. And Tom? Well, he had been with Elena, for all those experiments she’d talked about. It would probably be a mercy to let him die with his child.

Mary isn’t reporting Josie’s symptoms, either, but she knows Samantha will understand. Her Josie has done nothing wrong, her mothers are both members of the community and her infection is barely visible, _surely_ she’ll recover and everything will be fine. Josie doesn’t _deserve_ this.

… What the _fuck_ is she saying?

Of _course_ her Josie doesn’t deserve to die, but does she really think Amy _does?_ Amy, at the threatening age of one and a half, with her threatening vocabulary that includes words like ‘bananananananana’, because she never remembers when it’s supposed to end? Has Mary really fallen that far in her fear?

Was Elena even a threat? Samantha had talked about her grabs for power and her abuse of her not even complete medical degree to act without oversight and her smug, smug face as she gained power over the community and made them all dance to her tune. Sure, she _had_ been nice, but clearly that had all gone rotten with the disease. Hard times can warp people, Mary. You know how it is, Mary.

_Does_ she know? Does _Samantha?_

Mary wants to trust Samantha, she wants to trust her with _all_ of her _heart,_ but, well. She _can_ trust Samantha to do her best and to care, Mary hopes, but she can’t deny that it’s difficult at best to trust Samantha’s judgement right now. Perhaps the thing to do would be to go to Samantha, try to explain. Their marriage has been long and happy, in part because of their willingness to communicate and work to take care of each other.

She doesn’t, though. Doesn’t talk to Samantha, and doesn’t deny to herself afterwards that maybe, just maybe, she doesn’t trust Samantha’s care for her much anymore.

-

Tom startles as he hears a knock on the door. His hands shake as he wraps his Amy back up, hoping that this isn’t the time someone says they’ve finally decided to take her away. He isn’t sure he can succeed at running away, with the way the rot in his legs was eating at him. Whoever it is, they knock again, and Tom stumbles over to open the door. It’s Mary, Samantha’s wife.

“Heya, Tom!” Her voice is cheery and her posture is relaxed, and he almost thinks this is a friendly meeting before he notices her hands, shaking. “I was just thinking, we haven’t seen much of each other recently what with everything going on, and I thought I’d visit. Mind if I come in?”

Tom steps to the side and gestures for her to come in. He hopes his posture looks equally relaxed - he can’t manage the words he’d say were this actually a friendly visit. Thankfully, no one can see his face.

Once she’s inside and the door is shut, Mary collapses in on herself slightly, and sighs.

“I overheard my Samantha talking to the others, recently. They’re worried about you and Amy. Not in like a… they want to help you sort of way, either.”

He sucks in a breath. This is… not _new_ information, necessarily, but new in the sense that he hasn’t confronted it before. This is not a side of his community that he’d wanted to acknowledge. From what he can see of Mary, the same holds true for her.

“I’ve been thinking,” she continues, “and I don’t think I can just let this type of thing stand anymore. I _want_ to believe my Samantha only has our community’s best interests at heart, but no regardless her intentions, I can’t just… I can’t just _allow_ her to keep _doing_ this sort of thing. I want to help, if I can.”

“I- ” he coughs. The infection in his legs has been spreading up, he’s known, but he hadn’t realized it was reaching his lungs.

They both freeze.

Sure, she might think he has a cold, or some other minor cough, but really. They all know there’s really only one illness plaguing them right now, and he has to be rotten all the way through for it to be in his lungs. Now she knows. He’s rotten, sick, hidden in their midst. There’s no _way_ she thinks Amy is still okay, after that.

He feels like everyone in their village is looking through the windows, seeing through his layers and his skin to the core of his being where the rot crawls ever onwards. He feels like the sky has decided that out of all it sees and watches, his house is the most interesting place for it to look at. Every single eye, focused on him.

Mary shivers, and then takes a couple quick steps across the room and tugs the curtains all closed. The feeling barely lessens, but it does lessen. They’re still a two person show with an audience of millions, it feels, but they _can_ breathe now.

“I’m sick,” Mary says, and Tom immediately forgets how to breathe again.

“I’m sick, Josie’s sick,” she continues, “and I think Benny and Mabel are too, I’ve just been trying not to notice that. All things considered, I wonder if Samantha’s sick, too. How are you and Amy holding up? It’s been a bit of rough going with Josie.”

“Oh,” he says, with the last of his air. The first air he manages to inhale goes to more coughing, but after that he gets enough air for some words. “We’re… well, not okay. Things could be worse, I think. She smiles, sometimes.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Mary says.

Just acknowledging it feels like a breath of fresh air after being stuck in a too-small room for far too long. Mary knows, now, and instead of being something out of his worst nightmares, this is more like something from his wildest, most hopeful dreams. The feeling of eyes fades as he feels the first true relief he can remember feeling in… so long he can’t actually remember any other times.

“What do we do now?” He asks, and for once it doesn’t feel hopeless.


End file.
